


The Life and Days of America

by Kila9Nishika



Series: The Life and Days [2]
Category: Hetalia: Axis Powers
Genre: AU, Hendrick de Keyser etc, In the terms of America's origins, M/M, Maybe - Freeform, Non-Canonical Characters who are sort-of Canonical, POV Third Person Limited, Very AU, a bit more brutal, more mentions of blood and death, read the notes, seriously, were all real people
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-30
Updated: 2013-09-30
Packaged: 2017-12-28 01:00:34
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,648
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/985772
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kila9Nishika/pseuds/Kila9Nishika
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>From infancy to World War II, this is America.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Life and Days of America

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Philosophizes](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Philosophizes/gifts).



> Oh, look, an interquel! 
> 
> So, this version of WWII is not canonical, because I take things a bit more seriously than the actual show did.  
> The POV character is always the being who will one day be America|Alfred F Jones.
> 
> People, names, and places are at the end.  
> My cast lists are getting kind-of long. I like using real historical figures too much.

His earliest memory is salt-and-copper, flush brown-red of blood and tears that won’t stop.  Castle to castle to castle with only ships in between, he is certain that he despises such trips but has no place to call home, no person to call family.

He has no name.

Francisco calls him Brasa, but –

Abel calls him Nieuwe, but –

Enrique and Josefina and Antonio call him Nuevo, but –

Francis calls him Petit Louis.

He calls himself nobody, and cries tears of blood in the darkness of Castelo de São Jorge.  He hides under the bed in Palacio Real de Madrid, but can’t escape the smell of death and fights the men who drag him to Château de Mehun-sur-Yèvre because silk is worth nothing if you have no food to eat –

Ilpenstein is his favorite, because he can escape through the window and run to Amsterdam, where he can tag along behind Meester de Keyser or Meester Gijs Lingh and peek into Oude Kerk and listen to Meester Sweelinck.  He can follow Meneer Asselijn to Martszen Huis, and talk to Meester Van Den Vondel.

But.

Usually, he gets caught by noontime, and Meneer Asselijn slips a piece of Old Magdalena’s gingerbread into his pocket before he’s dragged away. 

He isn’t sure what he wants, but it isn’t life.  He hates it.  Everything.  He’s only high enough to see the edges of tables, and all he needs is a chain to actually be a prisoner as he is dragged from place to place to place –

Leaving Ilpenstein is harder than leaving cold Castelo de São Jorge or dark Palacio Real de Madrid or the golden Château de Mehun-sur-Yèvre because he can at least escape in Ilpenstein a little bit and ships make him so, so, _so_ sick.

The men are all “Il est?” and “Oui, M’sieur,” so he’s going to Château de Mehun-sur-Yèvre, and he tries as hard as he can not to cry because his tears always taste like blood and salt and –

The men are shouting, and he hides in his bunk, swallowing hard, hard, _harder_ because the ship is rocking worse than Meester Martszen when he’s drunk and the door slams open –

The man is tall and his eyes glow green in the shadowy cabin and he’s holding a rifle but also has three knives hanging from his belt and his hair spikes up everywhere really pale and there’s a smear of – wait, that’s blood, isn’t it? – something over his cheeks and there’s a funny scar that isn’t quite visible in the dim light.

To his utter shame, he gives something like a squeaking noise, and darkness envelopes him.

The smells of blood and salt are absent for the first time, the _first time_ , and he’s on a real bed in a room with a flickering lamp and there’s _cloth hanging on the walls_ and –

The man is there, sitting on a stool. 

“Are you – sewing?”  He blurts it out without control, and claps his hands over his mouth before he gets in trouble.  Who knows how _this_ man punishes?

The man blinks at him – bushy, bushy eyebrows – and sets down the cloth on the bed.  “You are awake,” he says, but his accent in Dutch is so terrible that Brasa-Nieuwe-Nuevo-Petit Louis winces, and awkwardly fumbles into Spanish.

“Do you speak Spanish or French?”

The man’s nose wrinkles, and he looks the way that Meester Martszen does when he’s about to spit on the ground.  “ _Never_ French.  I speak _English_.”

Brasa-Nieuwe-Nuevo-Petit Louis feels tears welling up, and furiously scrubs them away.  “I don’t know English,” he gasps, reverting to Dutch.

An odd, gentle sort of smile flickers on the man’s face, and he pats the bed.  “You’ll learn.  You’re home, now.”  He stands.  “My name is Arthur.  I’ll be back with dinner.”  Abruptly, he leaves, and Brasa-Nieuwe-Nuevo-Petit Louis hesitantly reaches for the cloth, unable to fight his curiosity –

_Ælfrǣd Fechín Jones_

The sewing is blocky, and red thread on blue, and Francis would be gagging in disgust but –

But –

_Ælfrǣd Fechín Jones_

“Ay – Al – Ælfred Fay-sheen Jones.”

“That is you.”

He looks up, and Arthur is back, with a trencher full of some type of stew and greens.  The man looks hesitant, and uncomfortable with it.  “If it is what you want.”

Francisco calls him Brasa and Abel calls him Nieuwe and Enrique-and-Josefina-and-Antonio call him Nuevo and Francis calls him Petit Louis, but –

Arthur calls him Alfred, and he knows.

He is Alfred.

And Alfred starts to grow.

When Arthur first saved him from everyone, he was shorter than the old work-table in the great hall, but he has slowly crept upwards, and now sits at the big round table with Arthur while the older man teaches him reading and writing, Scripture and Legend, history and mathematics and philosophy.

Alfred likes to read and write, but he likes it better when Arthur tells him stories, because there’s nothing better than when Arthur relaxes and waxes eloquent about The Flood and Cúchulainn and Socrates and Aristotle and his favorite –

When Arthur talks about when he was young, it’s the best thing ever, because his eyes light up and his hands wave, and sometimes he draws pictures and sings songs, and takes out old swords and daggers made out of bone and pots of long-dried war-paint.

He tells Alfred about dragons and women fiercer than fire, about stubborn kings and pig-headed princes and about Saints and Witches and Faeries –

The Faerie stories are scary, but Alfred likes them, because he knows that Science says that the Fae aren’t real, but he also knows that Arthur sees them sometimes, and that’s really awesome.

One night, Arthur tells Alfred about the woman who brought him up, Rigantona Who Was Cymru, and how Rome destroyed her.  He tells Alfred about Basileus Britannicus, who took Arthur prisoner and gave him the cross-shaped scar on his forehead when Arthur refused to kiss the Cross.  He tells Alfred about Skaði and her wild Vikings and Norse-men, and about wild Aran who became a hermit, and Maura who still won’t talk to him and Draco Who Was Born in Rigantona’s Ashes.

When Alfred wakes up from nightmares, he sneaks into Arthur’s room, where Arthur sleeps in a nest of blankets and pillows on the floor – some of the blankets are fur and wool, and older than Alfred is.  Whenever Alfred does this, he wakes up with Arthur already cooking breakfast, and never does find out what Arthur thinks of him doing something so childish.  Arthur doesn’t like to bring things like that up.

Alfred isn’t stupid, he knows that Arthur is really busy because of The People, but it hurts when Arthur sends him all the way across the sea to a _really_ nice house in Philadelphia.  The house is wonderful, and he can go where he wants and do what he wants, but Arthur _is never there_ –

And there’s only so long that Alfred can tolerate being ignored like that, and he just wants Arthur to _notice him_ so he –

Runs away.

He knows, peripherally, that Things Are Happening – there’s a funny Sense, of his own People, the way Arthur has his People.  Almost against his will, Alfred finds himself living in Boston, wound up in a fight for freedom and independence.

It’s almost thirty years before Alfred finds out why Arthur never came to Boston to bring him home.  When he finds out that on the Fourth of July –

The day he ran away –

On the Fourth of July, Arthur just _gave up_.

He can’t believe it.  Arthur, the furious warrior hidden inside of the perfect gentleman?  Well, the rudest gentleman, but still.  Arthur, the owner of over a hundred swords and over fifty guns, the owner of several _skulls_ belonging to once-enemies, _gave up_?

“Alfred, dear, are you alright?”

The speaker is his current host, or rather, _hostess_ , the aging Lady Abigail Adams, and Alfred is ashamed to realize that he never noticed her sit beside him.

“Lady Abigail,” he says slowly, trying to form his words from the agony in his heart.  “What does one do, if one has committed a terrible wrong against a dear friend?”

Lady Abigail smiles at him in a way that just makes him feel worse, because it is the same soft smile that Arthur sometimes got when he talked about His John or His Henry or (rarely) when he was talking to _Alfred_.

“Why, one attempts to make amends,” she smiles, standing slowly.  “One simply does one’s best, Master Jones.”

That doesn’t help the ache in Alfred’s heart.

Or the fact that each President resists the idea of Alfred leaving, so he never gets closer to England than the Ports of New York.

Alfred starts signing his letters the way Arthur had first taught him, _Ælfrǣd Fechín Jones_ , and bitterly ignores the approaches of various Secretaries and Vice Presidents and Presidents.

It takes every last bit of Alfred’s self-control not to punch John Calhoun, and he _does_ punch Andrew Jackson when the man shows up in his sitting room.

He feels ashamed of himself when, after months of uncharitable thoughts, the newly-elected President Harrison dies after barely a month.

He _doesn’t_ feel the least bit ashamed, however, for punching Breckinridge.  Twice.

He only meets Abraham Lincoln three times, and considers it a personal loss.  The man’s serious mien hid a wicked humor and a wistful spirit, a tall man with taller dreams, none of which came true within his lifetime.

The years drag and drag and drag…

He takes to hunting, for a while, with a young neighbor by the name of Theodore.  It’s a complete accident that he shoots President Grant in 1877.  Really.  An accident.  Nothing to do with the man’s terrible excesses back during the war, and his drunken and violent tendencies.  Nothing.

Really.

He attends Theodore’s wedding in 1880, and the funerals of Theodore’s wife and his mother in 1884.  He pretends that he is nobody more than Alfred Jones, slightly rich bachelor.  He struggles –

And then –

A miracle –

The new president offers for him to send a telegram, anywhere in Europe or America.

And suddenly, the dreams and dreams and _dreams_ of telling Arthur _everything_ , of _apologizing_ , or _something_ – die.

He doesn’t know what to write.

It ends up short and stupid.

STILL HATE FRANCIS STOP

I LIKE THOSE DOYLE SERIALS STOP

MISS YOU STOP

AFJ FULL STOP

He calls himself every type of fool as soon as Cleveland has left.

But –

But –!

_Arthur comes to America!_

On the 20th of May, in 1887, Alfred makes an utter fool of himself when Arthur stiffly steps onto the docks in the New York Harbor.

He chatters about the weather, and about the _food_ and the _clothes_ and about how _glad_ he is to see Arthur, and how _so very sorry_ he is about _everything_ and about how much more annoying people have gotten and about how noisy New York has become and how there’s a conspiracy about the tea in America because it’s _terrible_ and –

Generally makes an utter fool of himself.

It’s worth it, though, for the faint smile that Arthur gives him from under those bushy eyebrows, and the gift of a new gun and a sword and –

A _skull_.

“Is that –?”  Alfred is shaking, he can’t _believe_ –

Arthur looks pleased and proud and fierce all at once.  “The skull of The Norman Bastard.  I got it –”

“In the midst of the confusion of the wars in 1562,” Alfred interrupts excitedly.  He remembers this skull, remembers when Arthur had come home with it, triumphant and viciously pleased to have gotten his revenge, how possessive Arthur had been of _this_ skull –

“Keep it,” Arthur says gruffly.  “You’re a man, now.  You deserve to have a trophy, too, since people don’t exactly keep their enemies’ bodies anymore.”

There’s a rush of emotion that Alfred _really_ doesn’t want to confront.  It swells powerfully, holding that skull, and again when Arthur boards the steamship back to London.

Alfred tries to convince himself that it’s just pride over being trusted with That Bastard’s skull.

He fails.

Hiding from this _something_ , he sends Arthur a telegram about Sherlock Holmes.  After all, Holmes just _can’t_ be dead.

Alfred finds out that his old friend from the 1880s has gone into politics when the president arrives at his house in September of 1901, and it’s _Theodore_!

After two terms, the president is Taft, and four years later it’s a man who once again reminds Alfred of Arthur, all deep thought and short on words.  Alfred _likes_ Wilson and –

And then there’s a _war_ , and Alfred doesn’t know who did what, but people are shooting and killing each other, and bombs are blowing up all over the place, and some idiot kills sweet ferocious old Natalya and Ivan is born, and –

The peace is tense.  Arthur spends every second of the negotiations for peace arguing with the various government officials, and Alfred is doing his best beside him, but they _won’t listen_. 

They try, try  _so very hard_  to convince them that Wilson is right, right,  _so right_ , and it breaks Alfred’s heart more than a little to see Arthur trying so hard and arguing with his Own People –

They ignore Arthur.  As they ignore Alfred.  And Wilson.  And everyone and anyone with the tiniest mite of common sense.

There are blessed few years of peace, with Arthur warning and warning everyone, and Alfred doing his best (which isn’t very good, and nobody trusts him for some reason,) but Francis waves them off, and something is happening everywhere else.  Thankfully, just as some madman takes over Germany, _Arthur_ finally finds someone in government with half of a brain. 

Alfred hopes the same for old Theodore’s cousin, who is now the president, but the unfortunate reality is that the man’s wife would make a _much_ better president.

But he does his best to keep spirits up, since he can at least do that, and if anyone notices that he has put a fool’s cap on That Bastard’s skull…

Well.

Alfred has enough of this disaster when Japan bombs Pearl Harbor.  He punches Franklin, and tries to ignore Eleanor’s pinched headache-face.

He ends up on Arthur’s doorstep, in uniform.  The war is heating up.  And they had thought that the _previous_ war was the War to End All Wars.

The blood and sweat and dirt and tears remind Alfred of those awful, awful days, back before Arthur had saved him from the Others, back before stories and comfort and –

Love.

He smudges his cheeks with wet soot, the way Arthur used to describe the war paint. 

He draws bloody crosses and quartered circles.

He carries a sword with his guns.

And a few Nazi skulls end up boiled and sent back to London, to the House of Arthur Kirkland.

And he fights –

And fights –

And then –

And then –

And then, then,  _then –_

The bombs stop.  The shooting stops.  

The war is _over_.

The _War is Over_.

_THE WAR IS OVER_.

And Arthur is just standing there, looking lost and dazed and _broken_ and Alfred suddenly feels it like a rush –

Blood sweat tears war life captivity rescue saved and beloved and independent and free _free_ **_Free_** to _be_ and ArthurArthur _Arthur_ –

 – _Arthur_ –

He doesn’t think anymore, _why_ was he thinking about it so much in the first place?

He grabs Arthur by the shoulders (ohmygosh they’re the same height!) and kisses him.

He’s never kissed anybody before.

But this is –

Arthur tastes like ale and mince pies and potatoes slightly-overdone –

And something _perfect_.

Someone is shouting, and Alfred is pretty sure that Francis is the one who is screeching angrily, but he – does – not – care –

Happiness tastes like ale and mince pies and potatoes slightly-overdone and perfect because –

Arthur is what makes Alfred happy.  Arthur is what makes the world perfect.

**Author's Note:**

> Brasa = Brasil, the word "Brazil" comes from brazilwood, a tree that once grew plentifully along the Brazilian coast. In Portuguese, brazilwood is called pau-brasil, with the word brasil commonly given the etymology "red like an ember", formed from Latin brasa ("ember") and the suffix -il (from -iculum or -ilium). {THANK YOU WIKIPEDIA}  
> Nieuwe = "New" in Dutch  
> Meester = "Master" in Dutch  
> Meneer = "Mister" in Dutch  
> Huis = "House" in Dutch (so Martszen Huis is Martszen's House)  
> Castelo de São Jorge is in Portugal  
> Palacio Real de Madrid is in Spain  
> Château de Mehun-sur-Yèvre is in France  
> Ilpenstein is outside of Amsterdam  
> Hendrick de Keyser was a Dutch sculptor and architect.  
> Jan Gijs Lingh was a Flemish-born Dutch sculptor.  
> Jan Pieterszoon Sweelinck was a Dutch composer, organist, and pedagogue whose work straddled the end of the Renaissance and beginning of the Baroque eras. He was among the first major keyboard composers of Europe, and his work as a teacher helped establish the north German organ tradition.  
> Jan Asselijn was a Dutch painter and draftsman.  
> Jan Martszen was Asselijn's teacher. (In my story, Asselijn goes to Martszen's house to study and work.)  
> Magdalena Pietersz was a Dutch Renaissance painter.  
> Joost van den Vondel was a Dutch writer and playwright. He is considered the most prominent Dutch poet and playwright of the 17th century.  
> Cúchulainn is an old Gaelic hero.  
> Abigail Adams was the wife of American President John Adams.  
> John C. Calhoun was Andrew Jackson's Vice President for a VERY short time.  
> Andrew Jackson was an American President.  
> William H. Harrison was an American President.  
> John C. Breckinridge was James Buchanan's Vice President.  
> Abraham Lincoln was an American President.  
> Theodore Roosevelt was an American President.  
> Ulysses S. Grant was an American President as well as a General during the American Civil War.  
> (Stephen) Grover Cleveland was an American President.  
> William Howard Taft was an American President.  
> Woodrow Wilson was an American President whose plan for post-World War I was ignored.  
> Franklin Delano Roosevelt was an American President.  
> Eleanor Roosevelt was the wife of Franklin Delano Roosevelt.
> 
> For those who remember from Arthur's story, a ship really did crash on its way from Britain to America on the 19th of May, 1887.
> 
> The Norman Bastard is William of Normandy, against whom Arthur carries a BIT of a grudge. William's grave really was dismantled during the Religious Wars in France in 1562. Only a thigh bone remains.


End file.
